For a country which is home to one-third of the world's poor, it has been the most striking failure of our public health system to reach out to them. It is not that some of the social or religious groups in particular lack access to quality healthcare facilities, but that the poor in general get excluded. They are often forced to incur high out-of-pocket expenditure on health which only adds to their debt burden.

This paper presents primary data collected from two districts of Surat and Kutch in Gujarat and examines how and to what extent the decentralised system of governance has contributed to delivery of health services in rural areas of Gujarat. It finds several lacunae and shortcomings in the delivery by panchayati raj institutions of public health programmes.

"Mishri" is one among the various smokeless tobacco products used in the central and southern part of India. The use of newer tobacco products is increasing not only among men, but also among children, teenagers, and women of the reproductive age-group. The objective of the study was to study socio-demographic profile of mishri users among pregnant women admitted for delivery into Krishna Hospital, Karad - Satara, Maharashtra.

In recent years public-private partnerships have been offered as the miracle-cure that would help fix all the challenges to the health sector. Over the last decade, a number of ppps providing maternal health services have come into existence but few have been evaluated. This paper examines whether ppps with the for-profit private sector which provide maternal health services have contributed or are likely to contribute to making quality maternal health services accessible at affordable prices to the poor and marginalised sections of the population, as envisaged by policymakers.